


Eternal Bliss

by purplebass



Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26084341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplebass/pseuds/purplebass
Summary: It's Haline's tenth marriage anniversary and they celebrate it with a trip to the city where they met for the first time.
Relationships: Helen Blackthorn & Aline Penhallow, Helen Blackthorn/Aline Penhallow
Kudos: 13





	Eternal Bliss

“Wow, it’s astounding as I remember it.” Aline exclaimed, unable to take her gaze off the majestic monument before her eyes.

“I get it, but would you take the picture, please? I’ve been standing like this for ages!” Helen, her wife, wasn’t of the same advice.

It was their tenth wedding anniversary, and they couldn’t choose another place but the eternal city to celebrate. It had been Aline’s surprise gift for Helen.

“I think I’m going to bed in a few. Join me?” Helen had asked her wife without taking her eyes off the book she was reading. “Aline? What… what is that?” she had wondered with wide eyes after she saw Aline carrying an envelope. A big one.

Aline sat on the bed next to Helen and put her book aside. Helen frowned, not understanding what was happening. Aline took Helen’s hand and put the white manila envelope in the palm of her hand. “For you.”

“For me? Wait, you’re scaring me, Ali. Has something happened to one of my brothers or sisters?”

“Your family is fine, Helen. Open the damn thing, please. I’m dying here,” Aline said, biting her lip.

“Alright,” Helen agreed and decided to put Aline out of her misery. She thought she was cute when she was all worked up. The envelope was thick. Helen thought there may be a book inside, but she was wrong. “Are these flyers?”

“Open the green one,” Aline suggested. She was twisting her hands in her lap.

“Plane tickets?”

“What, are you disappointed?” fear tinged Aline’s voice.

Helen glanced at her wife. “Of course not. You must have spent a fortune on these,” she waved the tickets in front of Aline, still unable to realize the destination written on the papers. “Rome, huh?” she raised an eyebrow and wiggled her eyebrows.

“Where everything started.”

“Where everything started,” Helen echoed.

They had been in Rome for two days already. Aline had booked a fancy hotel for them even if Helen wasn’t the type who wanted to stay in luxury suites.

“It’s an important occasion, Helen. Never mind for once!” Aline had argued.

“But, but… you already paid for the plane tickets, oh my… you’re insane.”

“More like, I’m mad,” Aline corrected, winking.

“Huh?”

“About you, of course.”

Helen had smiled, then grabbed Aline’s shirt to kiss her in the middle of the main lobby, uncaring of the people passing nearby. “Come on, let’s go.”

And then they ended up in front of the Colosseum, with Helen posing for pictures and Aline taking them. Unlike their first time in Rome, this time things very slightly different. Helen and Aline were not alone.

“Mom, mom, the gelato is melting and is falling on my sandals and my shirt,” said Silva, tugging on Helen’s shirt with her tiny hand. She was only eight but she was already so strong.

Aline had found Silva in the forest three years before. The name “Silva”, in fact, meant _from the forest_. She had been abandoned, because Aline and her group had found her wandering alone. Her clothes were torn and her dark curly hair was disheveled and dirty. She walked barefoot towards Aline and other shadowhunters who were on a mission and aimed a long stick made of cutting wood at them. Aline had been moved by that girl who hadn’t had any fear and was ready to come at a group of five adults without batting an eye. She had tried to soothe the child and told her that she was alright, they would help her. They weren’t enemies. Silva had been wary at first, but then she had yielded after a while. It hadn’t been easy, though.

Helen looked at her daughter, noticing that she had stopped eating her cone when Aline asked them to pose in front of the monument. Now the gelato was melting. “It’s true, they are yellow now,” Helen noticed, quickly checking in her handbag if she had a tissue to clean her up. As she was doing that, she heard the sound of the camera and realized Aline had just snapped a picture.

“What are you doing, Ali?” Helen turned her head to look at her wife. “We weren’t posing!”

“This will end up on our family album,” Aline told her, smirking at her with amusement.

“Mom, when are we going to take a picture too?”

Aline peered at her other daughter from under her big camera. “When mom and Silva will pose for another picture, dear. Don’t worry.”

Aline messed her youngest daughter’s mass of blonde hair. She was named Callista and she was four. Helen had chosen the name. She had also been abandoned like her sister Silva. They had found her outside of the Los Angeles Institute one morning, bundled in a handmade quilt with a note.

_I know you will take good care of her._

And that was what they had been doing until the present.

“Callista, come here too. Let’s pose together before I lose my cool and refuse to pose for pictures,” Helen complained, but Aline knew that she was just joking.

“Helen, I know you love taking pictures,” she said. “Why don’t you take Callista in your arms?”

“Callista, come here,” Helen encouraged the little girl. She was still eating her gelato but she hadn’t messed up her clothes just like her sister did. “Okay, let’s pose. Say cheese!”

“Cheese!” Aline said at the same time, then pressed the button to take the picture. When she did so, she also heard someone sneeze.

“Callista, are you okay?”

The girl nodded and then looked at her gelato cone. When she had snoozed, she had accidentally thrown the icy cream on Helen’s white shirt.

“Wow, Helen. It seems like somebody has pooped on your shirt,” Aline commented. She couldn’t contain her laugh.

“It was yours, Aline.”

“What?” Aline asked, feigning shock. “Who cares!”

“I’m sorry about your shirt, Ali.”

Aline put the strap of her camera around her neck and strolled towards her happy family. “It is only a shirt, Helen. I think it’s better like this.”

“If you say so,” Helen shrugged, then the four of them walked away from the monument to enjoy more family time together.


End file.
